I think Wisconsin has the best set up. You must first harvest a doe and bring her in before you can get a buck tag. I think if North GA went back to a 3-2 with this restriction that we would have an even better heard than we have now. I can't find one reason why this would be a problem. 5 deer is a lot of meat for any family. Hunting isn't a recreational sport set up to produce a years worth of groceries for 7 people. In South GA I think the current limit is fine right now. A 3-2 limit like we used to have along with a doe to get a buck tag in place would greatly benefit the North Ga deer herd. Hunters who have trouble noticing any rut activity or think it has passed or not happened yet more than likely have too many does. I have been there. When there are many more does than bucks then only a few does actually get bred in November. Then 28 days later some more get bred. Then 28 days later some more get bred along with healthy 1st year fawns. This is not good for the herd or the rut. When doe competition is high due to a balanced herd the bucks have a much fiercer competition. They will be on their feet much longer and they will be actively pursuing much longer. With too many does there is no need to wander much. You can lay up with one for days and then find another with ease. When does start getting bred in December, January, and sometimes February it really screws everything up. Predators such as coyotes have less targets each fawning month and can wipe out each months fawn crop easier than they could if the majority were born at once. On 500 acres if you had 4 fawns born a month for three months you might be looking at 90% fawn mortality. Any bucks born from February breeding will face an uphill battle due to summer drought reducing food sources needed. A doe for a buck system would insure that doe harvest happen early in the season which would provide a much better rut for hunters.

Something needs to be done .Plus guys are just shooting anything they see that is brown. Look at the contest on GON. Guys shooting fawns and baby bucks such as 1.5 and 2 year olds but complain because they cant see a good size buck. I hear it all the time. We dont have good deer. Well there are good deer if you let them get age on them. I Have seen what kind of deer Georgia can produce and Im in a area that usually have small bucks but the guys around me are passing young bucks and letting them grow. I think something really needs to change such as small limits and more restrictions. Make people earn a buck tag wouldnt hurt my feelings and we need the same system kentucky has on calling in what you kill.

people pursue hunting for different reasons. for some a NICE deer is one that puts food on the table. For others they want the biggest rack possible. A balance has to be found for all. One buck, two does with initial license purchase, then addtl doe tags can be purchased for those that truly need more in their freezer.

I can see now that this is going to get interesting, so I'll throw in my .02 while it is still fresh.

Backoff the doe days/tags/permits whatever on everything east of Hwy411 -I-75 and north of Hwy 20...use a check in system for any counties that are in the northern tier (on the top as we call it) 2 bucks and 2 or 3 does should be should be sufficent for any hunter in this general area. Maybe the buck regs could be the same. Mountain WMA hunts, such as Cohutta, Rich, Blue Ridge, etc.... could tweaked to reflect the same mentality. My mentality goes back to an almost 70's management practices that were common on Cohutta; quality bucks and limited doe harvest...Cohutta was a mecca for deer hunters in the 60's and 70's, with big antlered, big bodied, mature does and bucks as the norm.

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I`m not familiar with those mountain deer ya`ll got up there, and only hunted there once back in 1980. I know ya`ll have some good hard mast trees up there for winter feed, but what are the summer sources of feed ya`lls deer have?

IMO the deer herd went to pot when you can fill one limit and print ya another one off. make the tags where u gotta go get them from the store and mark the deer again. when you print tags off line you can pick how many copys you want, we need to go back old school and get the herd built back up. i have been hunting for twenty years and only seen one buck chasing and he is on the wall. im just saying doe days need to come back because this free for all is not working so well.

This might be good for your trophy hunters but the comment you made about 7 deer being enough groceries for a family is just not true... We usually have 4-6 deer in the freezer and it won't last past April.... We use it in any and all cooking instead of beef. I run a hunting club and use the basic GA laws as our guide lines and we have plenty of deer both bucks and does... The one rule that helps is that even though Ga allows 12 deer you can only kill 6 in our club the rest must be killed elsewhere.... keep your earn a buck idea I paid for that tag!!!!

I don't know what part of North Ga that you hunt but on our family land we see as many bucks as we do does. Back in the 80's n 90's it wasn't unusal to see 10 to 15 does in a group and rarely a decent buck, then we got the green light to shoot more does....and we did. Now we don't see as many does but we see more bucks.
The earn a buck thing would be no big deal for me but I just don't see it happening any time soon.
Too many people are putting TOO MUCH emphasis on big antlers and not on herd vs land carrying capacity management. Shoot more coyotes!!

Something needs to be done .Plus guys are just shooting anything they see that is brown. Look at the contest on GON. Guys shooting fawns and baby bucks such as 1.5 and 2 year olds but complain because they cant see a good size buck. I hear it all the time. We dont have good deer. Well there are good deer if you let them get age on them. I Have seen what kind of deer Georgia can produce and Im in a area that usually have small bucks but the guys around me are passing young bucks and letting them grow. I think something really needs to change such as small limits and more restrictions. Make people earn a buck tag wouldnt hurt my feelings and we need the same system kentucky has on calling in what you kill.

Agreed....It's like a battle to see who can kill the smallest deer in this year's contest.

insurance companys are 1 main reason we have a 10 doe limit. thats it. hunters dont have as much say so as we would like to think about rules and regs. it takes to many years to get anything done with all the laws we have. yes i agree 100% about the 3does 2 bucks limit. will it change to that? probably not for a while. we keep getting more doe days every year. they still have either sex hunts on the mountain wmas where deer are almost non existant anyway. they did make a step in the right direction with only 3 doe days on national forest though. it will help some but not when 1 man shoots 5 does out of 1 spot at 1 time. seen that myself and couldnt belive it. he was from way down south. couldnt figure out why he felt the need to wipe out the entire deer population for that area. but it was legal

typiacally all I see driving around here, and around the house is does, and spikes. I would rather see a doe limit 3, instead of doe days, but like stated above alot get shot no matter what time of year it is. Especially if there eating in a garden.

I think Wisconsin has the best set up. You must first harvest a doe and bring her in before you can get a buck tag. I think if North GA went back to a 3-2 with this restriction that we would have an even better heard than we have now. I can't find one reason why this would be a problem. 5 deer is a lot of meat for any family. Hunting isn't a recreational sport set up to produce a years worth of groceries for 7 people. In South GA I think the current limit is fine right now. A 3-2 limit like we used to have along with a doe to get a buck tag in place would greatly benefit the North Ga deer herd. Hunters who have trouble noticing any rut activity or think it has passed or not happened yet more than likely have too many does. I have been there. When there are many more does than bucks then only a few does actually get bred in November. Then 28 days later some more get bred. Then 28 days later some more get bred along with healthy 1st year fawns. This is not good for the herd or the rut. When doe competition is high due to a balanced herd the bucks have a much fiercer competition. They will be on their feet much longer and they will be actively pursuing much longer. With too many does there is no need to wander much. You can lay up with one for days and then find another with ease. When does start getting bred in December, January, and sometimes February it really screws everything up. Predators such as coyotes have less targets each fawning month and can wipe out each months fawn crop easier than they could if the majority were born at once. On 500 acres if you had 4 fawns born a month for three months you might be looking at 90% fawn mortality. Any bucks born from February breeding will face an uphill battle due to summer drought reducing food sources needed. A doe for a buck system would insure that doe harvest happen early in the season which would provide a much better rut for hunters.

The "Earn a Buck" program was pretty much done away with last year in Wisconsin, it was very unpopular and didn't accomplish what it was intended to do. There may be some hunt units where it is still required, but it is not state wide. Hunters in Wisconsin have been moaning for 60 years about the over killing of does, even when there were very limited doe days available, even in the years when you could only kill a doe when there were 5 or more hunters in a camp. I was born and raised there and they complain nearly as much about the deer management as the hunters here in Georgia do.

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insurance companys are 1 main reason we have a 10 doe limit. thats it. hunters dont have as much say so as we would like to think about rules and regs. it takes to many years to get anything done with all the laws we have. yes i agree 100% about the 3does 2 bucks limit. will it change to that? probably not for a while. we keep getting more doe days every year. they still have either sex hunts on the mountain wmas where deer are almost non existant anyway. they did make a step in the right direction with only 3 doe days on national forest though. it will help some but not when 1 man shoots 5 does out of 1 spot at 1 time. seen that myself and couldnt belive it. he was from way down south. couldnt figure out why he felt the need to wipe out the entire deer population for that area. but it was legal

That is utter nonsense, there is no link to insurance companies and deer management objectives either here in Georgia or in any other state that I am aware of. States like Pennsylvania where you can drive the length of I80 and see at least 1 dead deer for every mile of its 320 mile length any day of the year doesn't have the doe days we have here in Georgia and they have more hunters, drivers, and overall population than we do.

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If the bag limit were dropped to 3 does and earn-a-buck implemented, doe harvest statewide would double or triple. Does anyone else not see the opposing objectives of combining these changes? I assume you mean to reduce doe harvest by reducing the bag limit, but earn-a-buck is a drastic tool to rapidly reduce a population.

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Let's just change the name from deer season to trophy buck season!!!!! You guys kill me with your ideals. "they shoot little bucks, nobody needs to shoot deer to feed their family, there aren't enough deer". (yet now you want a doe to die before shooting a buck?) It's really just a ploy to protect your precious young bucks so they can become trophies. It's Bee Ess. I'm done now. I'm going DEER HUNTING while it's still DEER SEASON!

All this infighting I bet the ainti's reading this and I know they do are having a blast. Sure there's no one blanket rule to cover our entire state, the great state of Georgia is just to diversified. There's no rule as well that says the dnr can't split the reigons into smaller sectors and actually manage the deer herd that we do have. I see it over and over i'n here, "I don't know what part of north Georgia your from but here where I hunt" guess what folks there's a huge difference between habersham county Georgia Wilkes county Georgia and chattooga county Georgia the heards are as different as night and day but all are i'n north Georgia. So let's say we do have a bit smaller regions how many bucks how many does?? How do we decide this? Yes there's some places that do reach the carrying capacity but as of right now at least i'n the north east Georgia mountains area we are way below capacity and at this point I think even the dnr is starting to acknowledge the problem thus the three doe day on national forest rule. As for 12 deer limit I personally think if a family can eat more than 5 deer a year then there's got to be some children i'n the family old enough to hunt and get tags and what about mom??? Anything more than that is i'n my opinion just a blatant misuse of resources and a poor act of sportsmanship. Ladies and gentelman we sportsmen have been i'n the past stewards of the heard. My grandfather my father have done a good job they understood conservation since they knew what it was like not to have deer not to have turkeys not to have the opportunity that we all take for granted. Once again I ask you please to keep the debate open and strong but under no circumstances let these issues divide us. All it takes now is a few elected idiots to side with the aintis and we may be completely out of the decision making loop. I think we are on the right track and basically speaking each person i'n here knows what their area needs. Let's not let need be overtaken by greed. Thanks for reading this long winded post this issue is close to my heart as it is and should be for each and every one of us.

Coastie; no there's no links between the two. But since game laws and bag limits have to pass through the Senate you cant tell me some money ain't involved in getting certain things passed. That's my opinion which ain't much. Look into how much deer collisions cost insurance companies in ga a year. A little cash under the table to certain people is a drop in the bucket to what they spend in repairs. If you can find it I guarantee you deer collisions have decreased since the limit went to 12.

Yeah we can't be naive and believe that insurance companies don't have a major influence probably more influence than the dnr biologists on deer management i'n Georgia. The largest insurance company i'n Georgia the Georgia farm bureau, has a upper membership group that reads right out of our state house and senate. Think about it the dnr falls under the department of agriculture the greatest voice in agriculture i'n Georgia once again Georgia farm bureau. Ofcourse other insurance companies also have their lobbyists i'n the fray as well. Just my opinion but I wouldn't for a second think that insurance companies didnt have the major if not the deciding influence i'n the 12 deer a season limit. It is a no-brainer they are just protecting their bottom
Line automotive collision payouts as well as crop depredations.

Yeah we can't be naive and believe that insurance companies don't have a major influence probably more influence than the dnr biologists on deer management i'n Georgia. The largest insurance company i'n Georgia the Georgia farm bureau, has a upper membership group that reads right out of our state house and senate. Think about it the dnr falls under the department of agriculture the greatest voice in agriculture i'n Georgia once again Georgia farm bureau. Ofcourse other insurance companies also have their lobbyists i'n the fray as well. Just my opinion but I wouldn't for a second think that insurance companies didnt have the major if not the deciding influence i'n the 12 deer a season limit. It is a no-brainer they are just protecting their bottom
Line automotive collision payouts as well as crop depredations.

DNR doesn't fall under the Department of Agriculture, they are both separate "departments". I'm sure some insurance companys lobbied for increased bag limits at that time, but the general public (hunters and non-hunters) also wanted a decrease in the deer population.

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Ok dnr no longer falls under the dept of ag I thought it still did but that aside I still say if you believe that the general public including John q hunter had as much influence i'n the decision to increase the bag limit to 12 deer i'n Georgia as the insurance companies I believe you are much misinformed.

If the bag limit were dropped to 3 does and earn-a-buck implemented, doe harvest statewide would double or triple. Does anyone else not see the opposing objectives of combining these changes? I assume you mean to reduce doe harvest by reducing the bag limit, but earn-a-buck is a drastic tool to rapidly reduce a population.

Even at any limit set, there would be not enough here and too much there...

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